The Royals needed that

The first win of the year is a good old fashioned curb stomping.

It’s far too early in the season to call any game a “must-win.” You can’t even think about looking for the panic button. But damn, did the Royals need that win on Sunday. It was necessary. Not just the victory, but the way it unfolded. They needed another dominant turn from their starter. They needed to flex the bats. They needed the bullpen to finish it off.

They needed a laugher.

Mission accomplished as the Royals brought home their first win of the 2024 season by a more than comfortable 11-0 margin. This one was done and dusted by the second inning. Nothing like a relaxing Sunday at the ballpark.

The first two games of the season were frustrating, aside from the starting pitching which has been consistently stellar thus far. The bullpen allowed the Twins to salt away their victories, but the real story had been the Royals’ inability to get anything going with the bats. Part of that was obviously the residual of facing the top two starters for the Twins—who are both very good at their craft.

Except we’ve seen this kind of start to a season before. It’s worth remembering that three games make a series, not a season. Still, another loss coming off the backs of a pair of tough ones would’ve been difficult to swallow. While one good afternoon at the expense of a divisional rival doesn’t mean anything other than a singular “W” in the victory column, it was still important. We follow the Royals. We’ve seen dreary season-opening series snowball into dreary season-opening months, which lead to dreary first halves, which lead to…just dreariness.

That’s why Sunday’s game was perfect—in both the timing and the outcome—even though it was the third game of the season. The Royals needed to make some sort of statement that this opening month of baseball is going to be different. It’s going to be better.

They came through, secured their first win of the season and checked several boxes on things that needed to happen over this weekend. Here are a few of those things.

The Royals needed a strong opening series from Bobby Witt Jr.

We know the dude can play. We know at the end of 162, he’s going to be atop the Royals’ leaderboard when it comes to metrics such as WAR. Yet we’ve seen—not just from him, but other key bats in the Royals’ lineup—scuffle to open the year and then have that carry along for quite some time.

So this series has been exceptional for Witt. He went 1-3 in the opener with a double and an important walk leading off the ninth as the Royals tried to ignite a come-from-behind rally. He followed that up with a 2-3 day on Saturday with another walk and two more doubles. On Sunday, he did everything but hit a double—which would’ve completed the cycle. He singled in the first on a high fastball from Twins starter Bailey Ober. Ober stands at six-foot, nine and works up in the zone with his heater. Nice job by Witt to get around on that pitch. Then, he followed that with a triple that banged off the top of the wall in right-center. For the encore, he clubbed one 448 feet to center field. I’ll add a note that this was all by the third inning.

That makes Witt 6-11 in the season’s first series with five extra-base hits. Do you like sexy slash lines? Does .545/.615/1.273 get your pulse racing?

The Royals needed Brady Singer to keep up with his rotation-mates

What made the Royals’ first two defeats of the season so frustrating was the fact that they received quality starting pitching in both games. Cole Ragans got 20 swings and misses, allowing two runs over six innings while punching out nine. Newcomer Seth Lugo twirled six shutout innings on Saturday, allowing just five batters to reach. When the starters left in both games, the Royals had a path to victory in both.

Singer outpitched both of his rotation mates, going seven innings, striking out 10 and walking just one. He allowed three hits, all doubles, but easily worked around those runners in scoring position.

(By the way, wasn’t watching Seth Lugo pitch on Saturday an aesthetically pleasing experience? The guy is just smooth. He’s like the perfect guy to follow Cole Ragans in the rotation. Not that Ragans isn’t smooth, but the energy in a Ragans start is something along the lines of overpowering. Lugo is just…cool.)

Singer made a statement with an efficient first inning but really showed some mettle in the top of the second. That came just after Salvador Perez gave the Royals the lead, where given the events of the first two games of the season, a shutdown inning was required. Singer came out dealing, punching out the first two batters on sliders. It wasn’t a clean inning though as Carlos Santana hit one of those doubles and then Willi Castro worked a six-pitch walk. He fell behind Ryan Jeffers 0-2, but worked his way back into the battle with his slider before getting a ground ball to finish the frame. That’s a situation where we’ve seen Singer come undone in the past, so it was good to see him finish them off.

By the way, do you ever feel sorry for hitters when they have to face something like this?

I don’t.

That was a wicked slider. Overall, Singer located really well on Sunday. These are the pitches he got called strikes on.

The pitches in the center of the zone mostly were the first pitches of a plate appearance. It’s raiding that zone the Royals talked about last spring, throwing first-pitch strikes and getting ahead in the count. Of the 27 batters Singer faced, he threw 12 first-pitch strikes with four additional first-pitch strikes put into play. That will work to a 59 percent first-pitch strike rate, which is right about where the Royals want him to be.

Once he got ahead, Singer started working the edges of the zone. He kept the sinker elevated and the slider down. It was one of those days where both pitches were working for him from the jump and it (hopefully) allowed him to work in his new offerings to show different looks from time to time.

I say hopefully because the only thing disappointing about his outing was that Baseball Savant didn’t pick up his sweeper or his four-seam fastball. It happens when a pitcher comes up with a new wrinkle. Singer said he threw both on Sunday. Savant had him at 53 sliders. I would wager that around 10 of those were truly sweepers. Savant also reported Singer throwing 41 sinkers. Likewise, I would bet that Singer threw about 10 four-seamers. We’ll see if the data gets adjusted.

The Royals needed a big hit from Salvador Perez

It was a rough first two games for the Royals’ captain. He has looked horrible at the plate, chasing even more than usual (which is saying something). Then on Saturday as the Twins were erupting against the Royals bullpen he just kind of waved at a throw home as MJ Melendez tried to cut a runner down at the plate. The throw was offline, but Perez needed to move to stop that ball from getting by him. It allowed two runners to advance and cost Melendez an error. Both runners would score in a four-run ninth.

Perez redeemed himself in a big way on Sunday though, homering on a fine pitch from Ober that probably would’ve been a strike on both the outer and lower edges of the plate. It came in the first inning after Witt and Vinnie Pasquantino hit back-to-back singles. One swing from The Captain and he doubled the Royals’ run total on the season. It also opened the floodgates.

That’s just brute strength to turn on a pitch in that location. It’s all the in wrists, you know.

The bomb unlocked Salvy’s bat, apparently. He followed that bomb up with a couple of singles and added an RBI.

The Royals needed MJ Melendez to carry on from where he left off

Melendez finished last season on a solid run, hitting .273/.352/.485 with a 125 OPS+ after the All-Star Game. He’s showing no signs of slowing down.

He doubled in the opener, collected a pair of singles and drove in the only run on Saturday, and capped off his afternoon with a fine diving play in left field, saving a run (or two). On Sunday, Melendez walked in the first and followed that up with a double to the right of center.

We know Witt is going to hit (and field and run) and we’re pretty sure Vinnie Pasquantino is going to come around as well. If Melendez and Maikel Garcia are banging out hits…this offense looks fine.

A few random notes from a game that was packed with action…

• Good to see Matt Sauer make his major league debut. Matt Quatraro found the perfect spot for the Rule 5 pick to pitch in the eighth inning of an 11-run game. Can’t get lower pressure than that. Yet pressure is relative I imagine when a guy is making his first-ever appearance in The Show. His curve looked as-advertised.

• Nelson Velázquez’s home run in the sixth was a laser. An absolute laser. I was a bit disappointed to learn the launch angle was 23 degrees. I could’ve sworn it was under 20. That would’ve been cool. Maybe I’m not in mid-season form myself, but I couldn’t find the hang time metric on the blast. I’m fairly certain that baseball kissed the sound barrier.

• I am contractually obligated to post a GIF of any home run that gets wet. Thank you, Maikel Garcia.

I’m not showing the ball go into the fountains because the side view of the swing is just so damn pretty. It’s designed to generate loft, which is, as I have written, something we really need to see this year. That one had a 28-degree launch angle and left the bat at 104 MPH. It was the second-furthest hit baseball on the day (to Witt, naturally) at 422 feet.

• Jordan Lyles closed out the game looking good. The fastball didn’t really play up as you would think with him coming out of the bullpen, but the changeup was a new kind of filth with a little more bite than we saw last year. I remain intrigued as to how he will contribute coming out of the bullpen.

• Just a comprehensive win. Again, a necessary one. Momentum isn’t a thing in baseball, but I do think this victory can serve as a statement of sorts. These aren’t the old Royals who will just roll over. They’re going to take your shot and get back off the mat.

Central issues

• Tigers 3 - White Sox 2

Detroit plated the go-ahead run with two down in the top of the ninth to finish off a season-opening series sweep against Chicago. Go figure. All three games were settled by a single run.

• Guardians 3 - A’s 4

The A’s walked it off—literally—to salvage one game in their four-game set against Cleveland. Scott Barlow, in his second inning of work, surrendered a walk and back-to-back singles to load the bases to open the bottom of the ninth. He was then replaced by Eli Morgan who didn’t come close to the zone with any of his four pitches. Shrimp!

Up next

The Royals head to Baltimore for their first road trip of the year starting on Monday. The Orioles are 2-1 after hosting the Angels to open the year. Looking below at these matchups, you may want to plan ahead and take a long lunch on Wednesday afternoon.

Mon, April 1 at BAL 5:35 p.m. — RHP Michael Wacha vs. RHP Dean Kremer
Tue, April 2 at BAL 5:35 p.m. — RHP Alec Marsh vs. LHP Cole Irvin
Wed, April 3 at BAL 12:05 p.m. — LHP Cole Ragans vs. RHP Corbin Burnes